by R K Billiau
“I think it’s a great plan! I’m all for it!” Madison shouted, standing next to me. She raised one fist in the air, while placing her other warm hand on my naked back.
Arnold looked sheepish. “I’m sorry, yes, I don’t know why I’m so off my game here, I feel like I have no control over my emotions.”
Madison smiled at him. “Well how long has it been since you were 18?”
This left me stunned for a moment. She was right! Did that have something to do with why I was drooling over her and getting all hot and bothered by her every touch? “Don’t tell me we have simulated teenage hormones!”
With that the tension in the cave broke amidst the laughter from the tribe. The anxious faces gave way to smiles. Arnold facepalmed himself. “That has to be it! There is no way I would have let my guard down that easy otherwise.”
I tried to bring it back to the more pressing situation. “Look, I understand how hard this has been. I understand it might scare you to get hurt and get caught in that death trap, but if we don’t step up, we will end up in there. Then we will all get sent to the tutorial zone and come back without Advanced classes to help us, making our lives even harder, and possibly with Cora as Chief.”
Nobody wanted that. One of the Gatherers, a tan man with sandy brown hair and brown eyes stood up. “I’m in. I knew she was trouble from the beginning, I don’t want to take the chance of her being in charge.”
Steve the Hunter stood up too. “I’m in too, man, forget those two.”
Slowly the rest of the tribe one by one lifted their hand and agreed.
“Tell us what we need to do Hudson,” Madison said.
“All right, the first thing we need is some music. Steve, if I could make a wild guess, were you a musician on Earth?”
Steve’s face lit up like Kwanzaa morning. “Yeah man! I was a drummer in a band called The Stainless Steel Rats! Did you ever hear of us?”
“Nope. Sorry. But that’s good to hear. We need some music. Can anyone sing?”
One of the Shaman raised her petite hand, “I was a singer for a dinner theater. My carryover is singing, but why do we need music?” she asked.
I smiled huge. “You always need music for a montage!”
Chapter 25
We didn’t have a montage. That would have been cool, though. What we had instead was an intense session of learning everyone’s skills, including carryover skills. My plan was to get everybody to acquire some combat skills to make us a deadlier force.
Our first step in getting the tribe stronger would be to free the rest, which meant being combat capable. One problem we had was a lack of weapons. We had one Hunter, who had his spear, and we had some random stone knives. Not a lot to work with.
I started by setting up targets in the cave for the tribe to learn the same skill that I had learned on the island, Throwing Mastery. For over an hour we sat there throwing rocks at targets with me as close as possible to each person to capitalize on my Audeo skill. We drew a circle in the dirt with me in the center that showed the 10’ radius of my skill, and we could get four people in at a time. Their skill jumped to level 10 once learned, thanks to Audeo. Then we rotated them out for the next batch.
This was time consuming and tedious, and we had no idea when Tim would be back with his undead army. We needed to speed things up. That’s when I remembered Madison’s ‘Boost’ skill, and I stopped what I was doing to look over at her.
“Madison, could you Boost me? I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner, but I want to try something.”
She nodded, rubbing the shoulder of her throwing arm, then made the gesture and I got the Boost prompt. I selected my Audeo skill and looked at the results. The range had doubled in size!
“Did it help at all?” Madison asked.
“Oh yeah! This is great! I can fit all of us within my radius now; that should make training go by much faster!” I was excited and hugged her, then dropped my arms, embarrassed. “Sorry! I got a little over excited.”
Her face turned pink and her smile grew larger, then faded to a small grin. “It’s okay, I understand. I should have thought of that sooner too.”
It saddened me a little to see her smile fade that fast and I hoped I hadn’t offended her. Then a thought struck me. “Your other skills, you were a teacher before, weren’t you? Didn’t you say Teaching was your carryover?”
The beautiful girl nodded. “Yes, I have Teaching at level 50. It says: ‘Teaching - Teach others to learn any skill you know. skills learned this way start at level 1 and gain a +1 level bonus for every 10 levels of the Teaching skill.’ I can teach any skill- except class skills- that I already know. At first, any skills I taught could only be slotted as secondary skills, but my level 30 milestone removed that and now those skills can be secondary or personal, besides giving that super cool bonus to the level when I teach skills.”
This was fantastic information that was changing how we could get everyone more versatile and help keep us alive for this mission. “How does it work? Can you show me?”
“I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ve been wanting to!” she said, excitement coming back into her voice. The way her eyes shone when she was excited brought a huge smile to my face. Holy cow I needed to get these thoughts and feelings under control. Damn this game for turning me into a hormonal teenager again! “What do you want me to teach you?”
I thought a moment, then using my new skill Character Scan, I checked her out.
Name: Madison
Race: Human
Class: System Cleric
Main Attribute Block: Heart
Highest Attribute: Empathy
Highest Skill: Teaching
Personal Skill: Toughness
Secondary Skill: Dancing
Carryover Skill: Teaching
“How about Dancing? Can you teach me to dance?”
“Dancing? How did you know I had that skill?” Her mischievous grin was back, and I got the sense that she didn’t mind me asking her to teach me something so physical.
“It’s another skill, Character Scan, it lets me see some of your character information.” I got closer to her, ignoring all the eyes that were on us. “How about it then? Care to teach me to dance?” I held my hand out to her. I had rarely been this forward in my life on Earth, but I would be damned if I didn’t try to change that aspect of myself in this new world I’d been forced into.
Congratulations! You have increased your Emotion attribute!
Madison leaned closer, and I swore she was going to take my hands in hers and take me up on the offer, when her face fell and she pulled back, looking away. “There’s no music. How about something else?” she said, her bubbly demeanor changed.
I too, took a step back, and a deep breath, once again trying to bring myself under control. “I’m sorry, yes, Dancing won’t help our situation much. How about this? Can you teach me the Teaching skill?”
She looked at me, pausing for a moment, then shrugged and made a gesture. A System message popped up.
System Cleric Madison would like to teach you a new skill; Teaching, do you accept? YES/NO
I selected the YES and got another System message.
Warning - Teaching this skill requires one hour of uninterrupted time. Do you wish to proceed?
Madison made a face, and I assumed she got a similar message. “One hour dedicated time for you too?” I asked. She nodded and raised an eyebrow. It was a cute look.
“Should we do it?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m not sure if this is an exploit or anything or if the game is intended to have ways of learning skills easily, but we are each going to learn as many skills as fast as possible!”
“I’m ready to get more powerful, I’m tired of feeling like I don’t bring much to the table,” she said, and I watched as she made another small gesture.
Your Teacher has accepted.
I pressed the YES button again, and we got into Teaching mode. It was a little odd, the world zoome
d-in on just the two of us. I could still peripherally see what was going on, but it was like I tuned it all out as I watched Madison. It was at once intimate and informative. I watched her as she made gestures and spoke like it was all a dream. I can’t remember any specifics of what was said or shown but soon enough it ended, and I received another System prompt.
Congratulations! You have learned the Teaching skill!
Teaching - Teach others to learn any skill you know. Skills learned this way start at level 1 and can only be assigned as secondary skills.
Audeo has allowed you to learn this new skill in 20 minutes.
Your teacher’s dedication has granted you a bonus! +5 to your Teaching skill.
Audeo - Teaching has been increased to level 10!
I had been hoping that the Madison’s bonus and the ‘Audeo’ bonus would stack and give me +15 to a new skill, but I guess that would have been too much. Still, now that I could teach skills we could make things go faster!
“That was a lot faster than an hour!” Madison said, as she shook her head. “That was weird too, I wonder if all Teaching will go like that.”
“You’ll get to find out soon, I think. I would like you to teach that to each person here if possible, or at least to Hunter Steve and the Shaman. Let’s get everybody able to teach each other’s skills so we can be as well rounded as possible for the next step. I figure we can both teach the skill at the same time. If we can teach a couple at a time, it should only take a day to get everyone on board, then in another day we can each have learned some skills like Stealth and Camouflage and whatever else could be useful. Hopefully we have enough time. We’ll become much more effective against those stupid zombies.”
“That’s a great idea!” Madison said. “But, why don’t I teach everybody at once?” Her face showed a mischievous grin that hinted she knew something I didn’t.
“You can do that!?” I asked, excited.
“Yep, my level 50 Teaching milestone allows me to teach up to 10 at once, it takes twice as long though, and Teaching to a class doesn’t grant my bonus to their skill.”
“That’s fantastic news! The bonus doesn’t stack with my Audeo skill anyway, but everyone can learn Teaching in two hours at level 10!” I bounced as I talked now, my excitement drawing the looks of Chief Arnold and the rest of the tribe. “Chief, we hit on a loophole, or an exploit, or just an optimization in the System!” I waved him and everyone over.
“What did you figure out, Hudson?” Arnold asked as he and the remaining tribe members joined us.
When I explained it to him, he got just as excited. We got to work then, setting about Teaching and learning skills in a strange circle of: someone Teaching a skill to Madison, then her Teaching a class on it. I would get ejected out of the class in 40 minutes having learned the skill much faster and would experiment with what I had learned. In just a little over a day I picked up:
Camouflage -Blend into your surroundings as you project a small color changing aura that affects you and your clothes. When active, attempts to detect you suffer -1 per level Subconscious. Cost - 5 spirit per second. Reduce speed by 25% while active. Requires attunement.
Cohesiveness - When working with others of the same group (Party, Affiliation, etc.) +10% bonus to all attributes and skills. Cost - 20 Zeal, Duration - 1 minute per level. Target - Self, Other.
Spear Mastery–You can use a spear with some skill. +10% damage and accuracy with spears.
We got that from Chief Arnold, it was a handy buff that could be cast on yourself or someone else, and it stacked with the Party buff from Madison for a nice +15% to attributes and skills when both were active.
I contributed to the group:
Stealth - The ability to remain undetected. When active, attempts to detect you suffer -1 (per level) Subconscious. Cost - 1 spirit per second. Reduce speed by 25% while active.
Stealth and Camouflage stacked so we could hide well although we would move slow. I wanted to teach the skill Core Manipulation but when I tried, I got a System message saying that my ‘Teaching’ wasn’t high enough to teach Advanced skills. I didn’t know how it worked yet anyway so it wasn’t too big of a deal.
We were taking a lot of time doing all of this, but it seemed worth it. I was weighing Teaching the Brawling or Sucker Punch skill to everyone. I settled on Sucker Punch, even with its limitations, the spike damage could be essential. Now everybody had some stealth, some ranged and spike damage ability and some detection abilities. This whole experience had been so fun and interesting.
As the second day neared its close, Arnold came to me. “I think it’s time,” he said. “We’re well-fed and well-rested, we’ve healed from our wounds and learned new skills to make us more formidable. We need to get out there and save the rest of our people.”
I agreed with him. As much fun as it had been learning new skills, and exploring more about the game mechanics, I was itching to get out and do some adventuring. Not to mention that I had lost all my freaking levels dying in that damn death trap. I wanted them back, and more. I also wanted to ruin all of Tim’s plans, and I was really looking forward to watching the look on Cora’s face when she saw everything she had been working for crumble apart.
Cora and Tim deserved to have everything they wanted ripped from their grasp. Then I’d kill them. I shook my head, surprising myself. Yeesh that’s a little dark. Okay maybe I wouldn’t kill them, but if they happened to die violently in the process of getting stopped, I might chuckle. I snapped out of it.
“Yes, I think you’re right,” I said. “We should get out there, but before we go right to the spawn points, we should do some hunting to get some more cores. We’ll have a hard time putting any kind of plan into place dealing with the zombies when we’re being attacked at every step by animals. Plus, once we get people attuned, they’re corpses will stop turning into zombies.”
“That’s fine, I’m sure we can find a lot of things to fight along the way. I would like to see how much better we are now anyway with everything we’ve learned.” Arnold spoke up, addressing everyone in the cave. “Tribe, it’s time. We need to save our tribe mates, and we need to stop living in fear. Tomorrow, we go forward!”
The tribe made mostly positive noises in return, and Madison walked up to us. “I’m glad we’ve decided to do this. I love teaching people, and it’s quite a different experience being able to witness a near instant return on that. I am ready to get my level on!” I smiled at her, in full agreement, feeling an overwhelming sense of pride in her accomplishments. Then, seizing the bravery of the moment I took her hand.
“Could I talk to you?” I asked and pulled her with me outside. There was a slight hesitation as if she was giving it a moment’s thought, but she followed. We exited the cave to the valley already covered in darkness as the sun was setting in the mountains behind us. The sky was still lit up and the colors of the setting sun made for a great backdrop for what I wanted to do.
I turned to Madison and smiling, dove right in. “Madison, I, I’ve never been great at... expressing myself. Or at least, I wasn’t back on Earth. I don’t want to be like that anymore though, afraid of so much, afraid of living, afraid of failing. What I’m trying to say is, I really like you and value the time I’ve spent with you. My favorite moments here have all been with you. I would like to have more time on a.... deeper level.”
Congratulations! You have increased your Emotion attribute!
I swear I saw her smile before it turned into a sad, haunted look and she pulled her hand away. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Hudson... I like you too, I really do. This whole time I have been in this new world you’ve made it so much more enriching. You want to do more than just live here and I see that, I feel that.” She turned her head away, her shoulders slumped. “I would like to be more... intimate with you. I’m just not ready yet. I know a lot has happened since we’ve been here, but it was only a few months before coming here that my husband died. I just... I’m... not ready
to get over him yet.”
Well, I didn’t know how to argue that one. ‘No, you should totally just get over your dead husband and move on with me!’ was probably not a good position to take. I could understand how she felt, a bit anyway. I had never had anyone that close to me die, had never had anyone that close before at all, really. I looked at her and embraced her in a side hug.
Congratulations! You have increased your Empathy attribute!
“That’s fine, I can accept that. I really am sorry you had to lose someone so close to you like that.” I tried to not show the hurt of the rejection, but I’m sure it came through anyway.
She leaned in. “I’m not saying it won’t ever happen, but I won’t lead you on either. I do like you, and I would like more. I just need some time.” She lifted her head up and looked me in the eyes. I wanted to touch her cheek, to guide her lips to mine. Being this close was physically painful, but I had to let her have her time. I nodded, afraid to speak.
She pressed her forehead against mine briefly, then kissed my cheek. “Let’s get back in there, we’ve got a big day tomorrow.” Then she turned and walked into the cave. I threw my head back, gazing at the sky and the setting sun. That didn’t go how I had wanted, but it didn’t go pear-shaped either. There was also the fact that I had actually just gotten up and done something as opposed to my usual “want someone and hope that’s enough for them to notice” method that I had previously. I took a deep breath and followed her back in.
Chapter 26
I would love to say I had dreams of unrequited love, of crushing Cora and Tim, of power and the seeking of it. But no, I slept like a rock. For the first time in what felt like a long time I slept comfortably and woke up to the Well Rested buff. Hovering over it I saw that it gave me a boost to the regeneration of all my expendable pools. Only 5% but that was great for something that would last all day.